


Mistress of Mine

by Senket



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-10
Updated: 2011-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senket/pseuds/Senket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Sure, Sherlock's married to his work, but since has that stopped anybody? John nudges him towards a better answer. It's to his benefit, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistress of Mine

Boredom pervaded his senses, white noise filling his head. Sherlock leaned back against the couch, calloused fingers plucking listlessly at worn strings, violin trapped upright between his knees as he conducted without rhythm. Clipped steps drew his attention and he glanced at the door just as Doctor Watson came in, smiling genially, shaking out his umbrella. “Sherlock.”

“John. Good shift?” He shrugged with a single shoulder, which made the detective sit up. “What happened?”

“Sarah’s parents stopped by when our shift ended, asked to have coffee with us. They hadn’t know we’d split, apparently. ”

Sherlock frowned minutely, plucking the violin out of his lap and shifting sideways. John smiled in thanks, hanging his coat and scarf before flopping down beside his flatmate. The silence could only be described as thoughtful, incomplete due to the careless intermittent plucking of strings. “That should be bad, shouldn’t it?”

“No, it was fine,” John answered breezily, cocking his head towards the man without lifting his eyes from their stretched-out legs. Sherlock’s were so astoundingly long, slices of slim calf almost pearlescent against his dark pinstripes. “She understood me better than I had thought, apparently,” he added, smile crooked but calm, “so we got along fine, but her mother kept making this face.” The silence stretched out ahead of them as they slowly sank into each other, relaxed.

Sherlock was surprised to note the tension in his head had lulled. Before he had been abuzz, needing something to do, flitting about wildly inside his own mind, looking from experiment to experiment, frustrated as they all stagnated. Now, nothing but sensation: he felt the quiet in-outs of John’s breath in the shift against his arm, matching it unconsciously. He heard the thunder in his ears slow as his pulse beat heavy and strong in his chest, a ball of heat deep within. He felt fuzzy as John’s sock, pressed against his bared ankle, sluggish and warm. He slid further when John shifted away slight, letting his head fall back as the man turned to face him.

“I’m surprised you, of all people, are being so conventional about this,” John spoke, so out of the blue Sherlock did not know what to do the words.

“I’m being what?” he yawned, feeling as though maybe he ought to be insulted, but maybe he’ll be that later, when he has the energy to pull away from the solid presence beside him.

“As I said, conventional.” Watson bobbed his head, a smile crinkling his eyes as Sherlock rolled his head against the couch to look at him. The doctor had shifted so he was sitting up properly, body turned towards his partner in crime, on arm looped over the couch, fingers brushing the edges of Sherlock’s curls lightly. “As though monogamy and infidelity were the only ways. You ought to know better.”

Sherlock paused for a moment, quickly filled with elation as he felt himself wake up, a odd feeling of lightness washing over him- John, this fascinating, wonderful man, never ceased to amaze him, and that very fact amazed him all the more. In sitting up himself he pressed more closely, lids drooping for a moment when he felt the man’s hand move to the nape of his neck. “John, are you- suggesting that you should like to enter this marriage with my work in a polygamous relationship?”

“Well,” the man answered, quirking his lips in a grin, lazing back into the sofa with a chuckle, “perhaps going straight into marriage would be rushing things a little.” He leaned forward conspiratorially, breath fanning across Sherlock’s cheek; the shifting tendons in his throat and chest made it clear he was holding back a bubble of laughter. “I am, after all, still carrying on a flirtation with a career in penning police novels, you see.”

Sherlock threw his head back with a breathless laugh, a pleased feeling filling him when the man beside him joined in, pressing against him shoulder to ankle.

The laughter died down into gasping giggles eventually, though it started up against once when Mrs. Hudson peered in with a look of nervous curiosity. Sherlock gazed over at the other man as they caught their breaths, an edge of maybe-regret in the crinkle of his brow as he stroked his fingers across John’s knee lightly.

He sighed when John shifted his head to look at Sherlock, the lines around his mouth creasing as he smiled. “Sherlock?”

“The thing is. I’ve never really been interested. In sex, I mean. It’s sort of a breaker for a lot of people-“

John’s smile increased in brightness for a moment, surprising Sherlock. “Well. I think perhaps it’s time for you to start a new experiment, wouldn’t you say?” He smoothed his fingers down Sherlock’s arm, thumb stroking broad lines, leaving a trail of goose pimples in its wake.

“And even if you still have zero interest,” he said, more brightly, the edge of laughter bubbling back into his throat as he stood up in one move with a pat to Sherlock’s knee, “there’s always prostitutes.”

He winked and made off for leftovers, Sherlock’s resurgent laughter warm as it followed him into the kitchen.

 


End file.
